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vista special folders default locations

I have tried moving the default locations of the Vista special folders now a few times by using the move location route. All seems to go well until at some point, something goes wrong or I do something wrong and I find a whole host of files being copied over when I know there is nothing in the default folder location as yet. These files seem to have nothing to do with the folder I am moving.

What is happening? Trying to work it out and put everything back where it was does not see very straightforward. On this I much preferred XP. Right click myDocuments, Move, Browse, OK. Done. The whole lot. This way of doing it in Vista is a complete pain in the arse in comparison.

For now I've given up and am just leaving them where they are, after another reinstall (no repair options as this is a recovery disk). But I don't want to be beaten by this. So can anyone suggest where I may be going wrong, if I am...?

Hi kevvyb,I've just gone through this nightmare as well!Was lulled into a false sense of security after just doing it with XP on instructions from FE!Got this from the MS communities forums.There's a warning that put me off a bit lol but it went OK in the end!click here

Should explain, I moved all the "Blue" folders including the "Favorites"...mistake, big mistake!Had to send it back from whence it came!couldn't get it to associate with IE7, so I wouldn't move that one!Not much to be gained.The only reason I moved the equivalent of the XP "My" folders was because I got fed up of having to constantly navigate from my "C" drive to my"D" (Data) drive to save or access my stuff!Worked a treat, happy bunny!Good luck!

I left the Vista folders in default locations. MAahine returned to owner before I was able to work it out.

Tried same in Windows 7. Can't remember now if the new 'libraries' were introduced in 7 or Vista.

But I eventually got there too in Win 7 by only moving the Documents, Pictures, Music and Videos library folders.

I found another angle on this and i thinkt he following explains the difference.

Right clicking on a folder in C:/users[username]....gives option to move a physical system folder location and this is what I have been trying and getting very odd results - even when selecting to move all files. This what everyone here is suggesting.

What I have done is gone in from the 'virtual folder' end (not sure if that is the correct term). Right clicking on the virtual folder Pictures for instance give the option to add and remove save locations to this virtual folder.

I think the difference is that the first leaves a default save location for the 'physical' folder on C: at users/[username] or moves that to another location (supposedly). This is what I had trouble with.

The second I think makes no changes to the location of that system file and instead gathers save location(s) for the virtual folders. I have added folders on my D: partition (currently the Win XP 'My Pictures' folder) and removed the C:/users/public and C:/users/[username] locations.

And this I think has achieved what I desired. The pictures virtual folder remains and and files saved there will actually be saved at D:/My Pictures.

What I have now also realized is that for me at the moment, dual booting XP (as my main system) with Win 7, I already have a set of XP special folders relocated from from C (when booting to XP) to D.

Placing another special folder of the same name there from the Win7 system is what has either confused me or the system. If the latter it may explain the odd results I was seeing that I could not make head or tail of.

Sorry kevvyb, no experience with Win7 vista's more that enough for me!I must say I was surprised that it left what's ostensibly a shortcut in the System drive, and just to be sure I wasn't being hoodwonked, I checked the free space on both system and data drives, the folders have defo been moved!Now, I've created a problem for myself answering this!Just lost power from battery, and wasn't quick enough to apply ac, so after rebooting, IE8 offered to re open my session!I've now got Gmail and Ymail both with the balsted image shack frog icon on the tabs and in the search window and don't know how to get rid!lol

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